Saturday, January 06, 2007

Scientists, Astronomers and Skeptics.....Oh my!


Yesterday's post about The Library of Halexandria launched me along a train of thought, disappointed that there are so few scientists willing to look at astrology with open minds. I wandered around the internet net looking at blogs written by skeptics, astronomers, and scientific types who take continual delight in decrying astrology. It's a jungle out there! But they're still putting forward the same old selection of tired arguments. Even though I've heard them all before, they still make my blood pressure rise.

If anyone has been unwise enough to read some of my earlier posts they'll know that I have some doubts of my own about my favourite subject. Those doubts lead me to question, but not to dismiss, the whole concept of astrology as we know it. I think of it as the only "tool" we have with which to prise open a box containing as yet undiscovered knowledge. This tool has been fashioned, modified, adapted, abused and adulterated by many minds over many centuries, no doubt losing efficiency in the process. All this tool can do is force open a tiny aperture in that box of knowledge, through which we may glimpse shadowy outlines, just the edges of the contents. That's all.

When some enlightened scientist such as Percy Seymour or Rupert Sheldrake stumbles upon the now hidden law of nature which brings about the astrological effects we observe, light will at last be shed upon the mystery that is astrology. Then, the clumsy tool we've used thus far will become a redundant curiosity. Astrologers will re-write their text books. Until then, we are stuck with the only tool we have. How we use it, and to what extent, is a personal matter. To throw it away completely, as do most who claim to be scientifically-minded, is reckless.

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."
(Sir Francis Bacon)

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